Accepting Fate - (Slums to Riches, Book one)

Chapter 45

Angelique cracked open an eye, moaned, and pulled the sheet back over her head. Two days passed since her return, and she still could not look into the light. The smell of food nauseated her, so she could not stomach anything other than soup and water.

She finally understood why the rules stated she had to remain in the light. If not for Cook and Michael's insistence, she would have succumbed to their taunts, and then she would have turned into Aunt Isabel.

The pain she suffered from stumbling around the forest and the attack from the demons, felt a lot more real since she returned. Worse still; she could not heal herself.

That last burst of energy she used to return to her body, left her completely drained. Cook spent an entire day pushing healing magic into her body to cleanse her soul from the demon taint. Then she had to rebrand Angelique against future possession. She had nothing left to heal her physical body. Another day passed as she sipped soup to regain some strength to her physical body. Cook used a preservation spell, but Angelique returned to a dehydrated, starved body.

Silver lining; she could feel again.

Someone set down another bowl of soup for her and walked back out the room. She could not even distinguish who it was by scent. Her sniffer didn't work. Her wolf howled at the absence of protein, once again.

"Oh, shut up," Angelique scolded. "You're not the one who had to fight demons and suffer through all the pain."

Logan's deep chuckle sent all the familiar tingles to the wrong, or right, depending on how one looked at it, places.

"I've never heard anyone argue with their wolf before. You've been doing it for two straight days."

She wanted to say that her wolf whined too much. She wanted to ask what he wanted to talk about before the bonding ceremony, and why she couldn't feel or hear anything from him. 

Instead, she asked, "Why are you here?"

The sheet ripped from her hands as he pulled it off her. She hissed and pressed her face into the pillow. Her body curled into a ball, but even that moment spilled tears from her scorched eyes.

"Your eyes will never adjust to the light if you don't stop hiding in the dark and your wolf is weak because you refuse to eat. And... I am here because I have waited three days to talk to you. I'm not waiting a second more."

"I can't eat. The smell of food makes me sick and I am not hiding in the dark. I never want to go back there. That's why the lights are on and the curtains open."

Logan pulled her onto his lap and pressed her face to his chest. She finally inhaled his honeysuckle and hay scent. It lacked the usual mountain air, though. He must have stayed with her the whole time to lack that particular smell. 

"You hide under those blankets every time someone comes in here." She tried to get up, but he tightened his arms around her. "Not this time. You are not running form me again. I'm going to say what I need to say, and this time, you're going to listen! It's not like you can go anywhere. You're legs are scratched up and your feet are still raw. If you ate something solid, you might have had the strength to heal yourself."

"I can't eat. Did you not hear me?"

"I heard you. You may have disregarded that part of you, but it does not change the fact that your wolf needs protein. Try eating something solid and you might realize how hungry you are. Your stomach won't stop rumbling and you lost all the weight you gained since you arrived. Even the curves you gained after your awakening are gone!"

Had he not seen her throw up when she tried eating? It reminded her too much of the puking-bouts at the restaurant after she ate at the Harlows. She could not go through it again.